A bizarre and terrifying experience; I messed up the dungeon world.

At the end of the basement was a stone door.

Behind the stone gate were densely engraved runes. As Zhou Lang approached with the oil lamp in hand, the runes began to slowly flow, like insects coming to life.

"Don't touch it." Zhou Lang stopped Han Yingying from reaching out.

Zhao Qiang stood at the very back, pressed against the wall as if he wanted to disappear into it. "Brother Lang, I think we can come back another day—"

Before he could finish speaking, the stone door opened by itself.

It wasn't a room; it was an empty void.

A notification popped up on Zhou Lang's system panel—

[Hidden space detected. Enter now?]

[WARNING: This space is associated with a "mysterious vulnerability." Entering may trigger unknown events.]

"A bizarre loophole?" Zhou Lang stared at those four words for three seconds.

He'd seen many strange things since entering the game, but this was the first time the system had proactively used the term "vulnerability." What did a vulnerability mean? It meant there was a problem with the game itself.

Just as he was about to take a step, Han Yingying suddenly grabbed his sleeve.

"Wait a minute." She pointed to the end of the corridor.

Footsteps.

It's not the footsteps of a ghost—ghosts don't wear leather boots, nor do they walk with a gust of wind.

Three figures emerged from the stairwell. Leading the group was a lean man with a buzz cut, deep-set eyes, and an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth. Behind him were two others, a man and a woman, both wearing matching black jackets with an inverted triangle embroidered on their chests.

The second guild – "Soul Eater".

Zhou Lang had seen this logo on the forum. Soul Eater was currently the second-ranked player guild, and its style of doing things was completely different from that of the first-ranked "Lawful". Lawful talked about rules, while Soul Eater talked about interests.

The crew-cut man smiled when he saw Zhou Lang and his two companions. "Oh, someone got here before us."

His gaze lingered for a moment on the oil lamp in Zhou Lang's hand before shifting away. "You're that 'Lang Li Ge Lang' guy? There's a lot of talk about it on the forums, saying he can scare ghosts."

"Who are you?" Zhou Lang asked.

"Vice President of Soul Devourer, codename 'Smoker'." The crew-cut man introduced himself casually. "Don't be nervous, we're just here to scout things out. There are quite a few hidden areas in this instance, so everyone's on their own."

He said it was all about skill, but the two people behind him had already quietly spread out, blocking his escape route from the left and right.

Zhao Qiang noticed. Although he was timid, he wasn't stupid. "Brother Lang..."

"I saw it." Zhou Lang handed the oil lamp to Han Yingying. "Hold this for me."

The smoker was still laughing. "Brother, I really didn't mean anything by it. It's just that this hidden space is first come, first served. You three, could you move aside?"

"No."

The smoker's smile remained the same, but his tone changed. "Then there's nothing I can do."

He flipped his right hand, and a dagger appeared in his palm. The dagger was entirely black, with dark red patterns on the blade—it was a weapon item from the game, and of a high level.

The man on the left moved at the same time, holding an iron rod, aiming straight for Zhou Lang's head.

Zhou Lang turned to the side, the iron rod grazed his ear and hit the wall, sending brick fragments flying.

He kicked the man in the knee, causing him to bend over in pain. Zhou Lang's chainsaw was already in motion.

hum-

The roar of the chainsaw motor was particularly jarring in the basement. The man stared at the saw teeth less than ten centimeters from his neck, his face turning deathly pale.

The smoker sheathed his dagger.

"Are you crazy?" He stared at the chainsaw in Zhou Lang's hand. "Killing someone in PvP will deduct points, don't you know that?"

"You struck first," Zhou Lang said. "Self-defense doesn't incur penalties; you should know that better than I do."

The smoker's eye twitched.

"Besides," Zhou Lang added, "this chainsaw is from the last dungeon; it has no durability limit. Want to see if it can saw through your knife?"

This isn't an exaggeration. In the rewards for clearing the Horror Manor, the chainsaw is marked as a "permanent item," and its attack power ranks among the top three of all known player weapons.

The smoker was silent for a few seconds, then laughed. This laugh was more genuine than the one before.

"Interesting." He waved his hand, and the two men retreated. "Alright, I misjudged them this time. But—"

He turned and headed towards the stairs, stopping beside Han Yingying. "Han Yingying, right? I've seen your record. Two S-rank dungeons cleared, impressive. It's a pity you didn't join a guild; going it alone will only lead to trouble sooner or later."

Han Yingying remained expressionless. "Thank you for your concern."

The smoker is gone.

Zhao Qiang plopped down on the ground, his legs too weak to stand. "Damn, that scared me to death. Brother Lang, what if you had really sawed it off just now—"

"I measured the distance; it's off by eight centimeters." Zhou Lang turned off the chainsaw. "Let's go in and take a look."

Zhao Qiang: "...You measured it??"

The three entered the hidden space.

It was surprisingly small inside, only the size of a classroom. The four walls were covered with photographs, black and white, all of them of the same building—the manor they were currently in.

But the manor in the photos is not quite the same as the real one. In some photos, the manor has six floors, while in others it only has three. In some photos, the sky is a normal blue, in others it is purple, and in two other photos, the sky is completely black, so black that the outlines of the buildings are not even visible.

In the center of the room was a table with an open diary on it.

Zhou Lang walked over and flipped through it. Most of the content was blacked out, leaving only a few paragraphs of text that were legible:

"...37th reset...parameter anomaly...the vulnerability has spread to the real world..."

"...The core anchor point is unstable...It is recommended to lock down S-rank and above instances...This has not been approved..."

"...They've started infiltrating. Not through the instance portal, but through vulnerabilities. Real-world bizarre events have increased by 340%... This wasn't part of the game design..."

Zhou Lang took pictures of these pages.

Han Yingying was also looking at the photos on the wall. She reached out and picked one up—on the back of the photo was a string of numbers: "0.0.7-ERR".

"Version number?" Han Yingying flipped the photo over to show Zhou Lang.

"Or it could be an error code," Zhou Lang said. "ERR is short for error. This copy—or rather, this game—has a bug."

Zhao Qiang, listening nearby, was completely bewildered. "Wait, what are you two talking about? What bug? A game is just a game, isn't it?"

Zhou Lang and Han Yingying exchanged a glance.

Zhou Lang had only mentioned the strange vulnerability to Han Yingying before. It wasn't that he didn't trust Zhao Qiang, but the matter was too complex, and the fewer people who knew, the safer it would be. But now it seemed there was no point in keeping it a secret.

"Sit down," Zhou Lang said.

"I'm already sitting down." Zhao Qiang was indeed still sitting on the ground.

"Then let's continue sitting." Zhou Lang squatted down and briefly explained what he had discovered recently: the strangeness in the game was constantly escalating, far exceeding the normal difficulty curve; inexplicable strange events were also beginning to occur in the real world; he suspected that there was a connection between the two, and the point of connection was the loophole in the game system itself.